Free Mary's Child by Irene Carr Page B

stretch out in. It held a narrow bed, a curtain with a hanging-rail behind it to serve as a wardrobe, and her box. It had been Mary’s when she was in service, but Bessie had packed Chrissie’s few clothes in it. Under the window stood a dresser with a china bowl and a jug filled with water.
    Bessie saw Chrissie into bed on the night of the funeral, helped her to undress and climb in, telling her, ‘I’ve put your bottle in.’ That was an earthenware hot-water bottle she had brought from the Carters’ house. The room was chill because, as was usual, the only fire in the house was that in the kitchen. Bessie sat on the edge of the bed and asked, ‘Are you all right, pet?’
    ‘Yes, Aunt Bessie,’ Chrissie answered obediently, without expression.
    Bessie sighed and took an envelope from the pocket of her apron and showed it to Chrissie. ‘Don’t open this. I’m putting it in here to be safe.’ Then she dug down to the bottom of Chrissie’s box and laid the envelope there, smoothed the clothes over it. ‘You keep that in your box till you’re older.’
    ‘Yes, Aunt Bessie.’
    Bessie kissed the small face. ‘Goodnight.’ She turned off the gas and left the child to sleep. Chrissie was not in darkness because the tiny room was lit by the streetlights that cast shadows on the ceiling.
    Bessie went down to the kitchen and to Daniel, sprawled in an armchair before the fire. He held his pipe clenched between big, yellow teeth and a glass of dark rum stood on the table beside him.
    Bessie said, ‘How much of that have you had today?’
    Daniel growled low in his barrel chest, ‘Too much and not enough. Poor little bugger. Did you see her face in the cemetery?’
    ‘I did.’ Bessie sighed. ‘But she’s never cried. All through, she’s never cried. I can’t understand it.’
    But she was wrong. Chrissie was crying now.

Chapter 6
    February 1901
     
    Chrissie slept at last and woke to a new day. The sun had not yet risen but the wind had blown the sky clear of cloud and smoke in the night. Beyond the yellow pools cast by the gas lamps in the street there was a high, dark blue ceiling pricked by paling stars. The street that had been silent came alive now with the clatter of boots as the first men hurried on their way to work in the yards.
    She rolled off the bed and shivered in the chill of the room, but pulled the nightdress over her head then washed in the bowl of water under the window. She dressed quickly, taking her old, worn clothes out of the box. Her new ones had been hung up behind the curtain by Bessie the night before. Chrissie knew they had to last and would only come out again on Sundays. She ran a comb through her hair, seeing herself in the mirror of the dresser, big eyed with nervousness. She wielded the comb quickly because she could hear the house already alive around her.
    Out on the landing she saw the doors to the lodgers’ room and that of the boys were open and the rooms were empty. At the turn of the stairs was a window that looked out over the yard at the rear. She glanced out of this in passing and saw Daniel Milburn and his five sons already hard at work. They earned their living as hawkers, selling fruit and vegetables off horse-drawn carts going from street to street.
    Now they were mucking out the stalls of the horses by the light of two flaring gas lamps in the yard and lanterns hung up in the stables. These stretched along the right-hand side of the yard. The midden was a walled enclosure sticking out from the stables, with a hatch from the stables leading to it. Steam rose from the muck forked out through the hatch into the midden. At the far end of the yard was the gate, still closed, and down the left-hand side were ranked the flat carts that would carry the fruit and vegetables.
    Chrissie took in all this activity, the whistling, singing, calling young men going briskly about their work and the leather-lunged Daniel bawling orders at them: ‘I want Benjy today! I’ve got a